Sixty-five-year-old Burt Shavitz might still be selling honey in
peanut butter jars from his Datsun had then-waitress Roxanne Quimby
not pulled to the side of a rural Maine road one day in 1989 to
talk collaboration. The result: a Raleigh, North Carolina, company
that has made a transition from honey and hand-dipped beeswax
candles to its famous lip balm, perfumed body oil and pet-care
products. The secret behind Quimby and Shavitz' climb from
wholesale craft fair to sales of $20 million this year? In a word,
buzz. Burt's Bees has been the subject of articles in numerous
magazines, from Family Circle to Forbes and most things in
between.

Buzz of 1999: virtual Buzz of 2000:
reality

Lack Thereof: "There
was a certain frenzy around the product because it wasn't that
available. For one, we were sort of unknown, but also, when we did
have orders, we had difficulty filling them."

Big Buzz To Big
Hit

Pet
rock

Model
T

The
iMac

Guerrilla Marketing:
"We did a thing where Burt made per-sonal appearances at some
New York [City] stores. We hired an actor dressed as a bee to give
out free lip balm, we gave out free smoothies, and Burt signed
posters and gave away T-shirts. But we can get away with that,
whereas it would be ridiculous for Clinique. We have a personality
that is 'for the people'-anything goes."

Big Buzz To Big
Flop

New
Coke

Betamax
VCR

The
Edsel

Webster's defines "buzz" as "to
whisper; to communicate, as tales, in an undertone; to spread, as
report, by whispers, or secretly." The word originated as an
imitation of the sound a bee makes.

Burt Shavitz was a beekeeper who just happened to
become famous. Some famous people who just happened to keep bees
are Martha Stewart, Aristotle and fictional detective Sherlock
Holmes.

Should any of the 100,000 other beekeepers in the
United States decide to start businesses, they have a variety of
product lines to choose from-besides honey, candles and skin care,
beeswax is used in crayons, floor polish, protective car polishes
and threadmaking.

"The saying
"mind your own beeswax" comes from old-fashioned makeup.
Women used to use wax to fill in scars left by smallpox. When the
weather was warm, the wax would melt."